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joseph/eng501/lecture3

Eng 501: Lecture 3 Constituent structure I 1. Intuitions about structure refer to judgements about how sound sequences in sentence are structured into successively larger structural units called constituents and judgements about how particular sets of constituents belong to the same constituents or not 2. Certain words in a construction are intuited to do with, or modifying other words: In the sentence This boy must seem incredibly stupid to the girl incredibly is intuited to go with stupid that is intuited to go with girl this is intuited to go with boy seems is intuited to go with incredibly stupid to that girl 3. Information about constituent structure can be presented diagrammatically: (a) That boy must seem incredibly stupid to that girl

(b) Each point on the tree is called a node. Each node represents a constituent (syntactic unit) (c) There are words and phrases 4. How do we know that the constituents belong to the same type? (a) Traditional Grammar makes a distinction between group and class of words: (boy/girl) (this/that), (seem) (incredibly), (to) (b) Just as words belong to different categories so do phrases: (this boy/that girl), (must) (seem incredibly stupid), (to that girl). 5. We may include the categorical information on the tree diagram: (a) S NP D N M V ADV VP AP A P D This boy must seem incredibly stupid to that PP NP N girl

(b) The categorial tree diagram provides a visual representation of the phrase structure of the sentence. This type of labelled tree diagram is called a Phrase Marker as it marks hierarchical grouping of words into phrases and of phrases into sentences. (c) We may just as well use a labelled bracketing: [S[NP[D this] [N boy]][M must][VP [V seem][AP[ADV incredibly][A stupid]][PP[P to][NP[D that][N girl] 1

joseph/eng501/lecture3

6. (a) The point is that sentences are not just random sequences of sounds, rather they have hierarchical structure in which sounds are grouped together into words, words into phrases, and phrases into sentences (b) Each phrase belongs to a specific syntactic category (c) We may say that sentences have categorial constituent structure. (d) All sentences have categorial constituent structure, i.e. all sentences are hierarchically structured out of words and phrases, and that each of the component words and phrases in the sentence belongs to a specific category. 7. Evidence for word level categories: (a) Phonological Differences in stress patterns in words distinguish them into different word classes. It seems that phonological rules have access to categorial information. (b) Semantic (i) Certain types of ambiguity support the proposal that words belong to different categories (ii) Structural ambiguity present cases in which we are compelled to read certain words as occurring in different categories. E.g. the string mistrust wounds may be read as (a) (VP + NP) or as (b) (NP + VP) (a) will correspond with mistrust sores and (b) will correspond with suspicion wounds. (c) Morphological Certain types of inflections tend to attach only to specific categories Verbs have the five forms Adverbs have the ly suffix Prepositions are invariable, taking no inflections (d) Syntactic Syntactic evidence is distributional, i.e. the sentence position in which a word can occur is determined by its category. Only nouns can fill the ff gap: - can be a pain in the neck Only verbs can occur in : they/it can Auxiliaries: - be frank Adjectives and Adverbs can occur after very Only Adverbs can occur in the gap He treated her Only Adjectives can occur as complements of be Only determiners can occur in the gap he wrote other work(s) Only prepositions can be preceded by right in the sense of completely We may therefore define word level categories as sets of words which share common sets of linguistic (morphological and syntactic) properties. Constituent Structure II: Phrasal level categories 1. Word level categories expand into phrasal categories with the addition of other constituents. 2. Non-syntactic evidence (a) Morphological While morphology is actually a property of words rather than of phrases, there is one inflection in English which is indeed a phrasal inflection the genitive (-s) inflection. E.g. this crown is the kings Is the inflection here the property of the word or of the phrase? In a noun phrase in which the head noun is premodified the genitive s must attach to the whole phrase. This may be affirmed by the evidence provided by sequences such as, this crown is king of Englands, which is permissible, and this

joseph/eng501/lecture3

crown is the kings of England. The genitive can attach only to an NP and to no other -phrase. The string this crown is very handsomes which is non-permissible. (b) Semantic (i) Structural ambiguity Mary looked very hard The underlined phrase may be interpreted as AdvP, paraphraseable by very intensely, or as an AP paraphraseable as very severe. Another type of structural ambiguity occurs when a given word/phrase can be taken as modifying any one of two (or more) different constituents: The president could not ratify the treaty This sentence may either be iinterpreted as It would not be possible for the president to ratify the treaty; or as It would be possible for the president not to ratify the treaty. The ambiguity in the sentence relates to the scope of the negative particle VP or S. The fact that not may lie outside or inside the VP makes the constituent VP a key construct in our account of scope ambiguity, i.e. negative scope facts provide strong evidence for the postulation of a VP constituent. Again the sentence may be seen as having two cleft constructions: What the president could not do was ratify the treaty What the president could do was not to ratify the treaty. (c) Phonological Negative contraction as in would not -> wouldnt Negative contraction is only possible where the negative modifies the modal and when it modifies the ff VP. Therefore The president couldnt ratify the treaty can only be interpreted as it would not be possible for the president to ratify the treaty It seems therefore that the negative contraction rule applies to contract a negative which modifies a modal, but not a negative which modifies a VP. Such an account of negative contraction presupposes that sentences have their ICs (NP M VP), and therefore requires to posit the existence of phrasal categories. (d) Distributional criteria The bulk of evidence for phrasal constituent structure is syntactic in nature. These relate to the distribution of various sequences or words. (i) Preposing certain parts of the sentence may be preposed for emphasis. E.g. I cant stand your elder sister Your elder sister I cant stand. Only a whole phrase, not just part of it, can be preposed Your elder sister I cant stand. *Your elder I cant stand sister. *Elder sister I cant stand your. *Sister I cant stand your elder. Non constituent elements cannot be preposed. Joan looked up her phone number Her phone number Joan looked up. *Up her phone number Joan looked The point is that only phrasal constituents can undergo preposing (ii) Postposing Structures moved to the right of the construction. He explained all the terrible problems that he encountered to her He explained to her all the terrible problems that he encountered. The structure that make a successful postposing forms a phrasal constituent. Only phrasal constituents can undergo transposition. (iii) Sentence fragments

joseph/eng501/lecture3

(a) Consider: Where did he go? Up the hill; which is right, and Who were you ringing up? Up my elder sister which is not permissible. Only phrasal level constituents can be used as sentence fragments. (iv) Adverbial expressions Adverbial expressions group into 2 certainly group and completely group Certainly/*Completely the team can rely on my support The team certainly/*completely can rely on my support The team can *certainly/completely rely on my support The team can rely on my support certainly/completely. We can account for the different distribution of certainly and completely in terms of constituent structure: Certainly as an S adverb can be attached to the modal and not to the VP. Completely as a VP adverb must be attached to the VP between the modal and the VP or at the end of the sentence. (e) Other distributional evidence (i) Coordination The question is what kind of elements can or cannot be coordinated in English. Is she in the kitchen or the bathroom *John rang up his father and up his mother Only constituents can be conjoined; non constituent sequences cannot be conjoined. Further only identified constituents can be conjoined idiomatically John wrote to Mary and to Fred (PP & PP) She sent a letter and a postcard (NP & NP) *John wrote a letter and to Fred (NP & PP) This demonstrates that there is no way we could give an account of coordination without presupposition that sentences are structured into sets of constituents each of which belongs to a particular category. (ii) Shared constituents coordination E.g. John walked and (Mary ran) up the hill. John denied (but Fred admitted) complicity in the crime. The italicised elements are shared by the respective two conjuncts. Thus up the hill goes with both John walked and Mary walked. But *John rang (and Harry picked) up Marys sister. The sentence may be elliptical for John rang up Marys sister and Henry picked up Mary sister. But up Marys sister is not a constituent in either sentence. Up goes with the verb rang to form the phrasal verb rang up, and the second conjunct up goes with the verb picked forming the phrasal verb pick up. Shared constituent coordination is only possible where the moved string is a possible constituent of each of the conjuncts.

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